Editing 1st Dáil (section)

===Reactions===
The first meeting of the Dáil and its declaration of independence was headline news in Ireland and abroad.<ref name="presscoverage">[https://www.dail100.ie/en/long-reads/press-coverage/ "Press coverage of the First Dáil"]. [[Oireachtas]].</ref> However, the press censorship that began during the First World War was continued by the Dublin Castle administration after the war. The Press Censor forbade all Irish newspapers from publishing the Dáil's declarations.<ref>Carty, James. ''Bibliography of Irish History 1912–1921''. Irish Stationery Office, 1936. p.xxiii</ref>

That evening, a [[Unionism in Ireland|unionist]] view of events was printed in a local newspaper. It claimed that the [[Lord Lieutenant of Ireland]], "[[John French, 1st Earl of Ypres|Lord French]], is today the master of Ireland. He alone... will decide upon the type of government the country is to have, and it is he rather than any member of the House of Commons, who will be the judge of political and industrial reforms".<ref name="Comerford"/> French's observer at the meeting, George Moore, was impressed by its orderliness and told him that the Dáil represented "the general feeling in the country".<ref name="Mitchell17"/> ''[[The Irish Times]]'', then the voice of the Unionist status quo, called the events both farcical and dangerous.<ref name="presscoverage"/>

Irish republicans, and many nationalist newspapers, saw the meeting as momentous and the beginning of "a new epoch".<ref name="presscoverage"/> According to one observer: "It is difficult to convey the intensity of feeling which pervaded the Round Room, the feeling that great things were happening, even greater things impending, and that in looking around the room he saw a glimpse of the Ireland of the future".<ref name="Mitchell17"/>

One American journalist was more accurate than most when he forecast that "The British government apparently intends to ignore the Sinn Fein republic until it undertakes to enforce laws that are in conflict with those established by the British; then the trouble is likely to begin".<ref name="presscoverage"/>